Stitches In Time
by Laura Schiller
Summary: A drabble collection. Here's how some of the most objectionable parts of "Death in Heaven" could have been handled differently.
1. Chapter 1

Stitches In Time

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"Clara … "

"Danny?"

The front hallway of her flat had become a shining, golden-white portal through which she could hear Danny's voice. Was she dreaming, or had she died in her sleep and was about to follow him to heaven?

Neither. "It's the control bracelet. I figured out how to let it take me back."

"So c'mon," said Clara, breathlessly, hardly daring to hope.

The portal wavered. A dark figure appeared inside. She squinted. Was it Danny? It didn't look right, taller and wider than one person should be, but the more it advanced, the more she could see clearly.

"Er … it's supposed to be good for just one person … but I met someone in there who helped me make some adjustments. Friend of the Doctor's."

"Adjustments? What – _oh!_"

It _was_ Danny, smiling, healthy, whole. He wore the same black jacket he had left his house in. His hand was on the shoulder of a young Middle Eastern boy in a blue sports T-shirt.

With a sob of delight, Clara ran to throw her arms around them both.

_(Note: The friend who helps Danny could be anyone – Strax maybe, since he would have been long buried by 2014 and is good with technology, as we saw in "The Snowmen" when he kept Clara alive longer than should have been possible. Or Romana; I know she stays behind in a pocket universe, but she could have gotten out since. Maybe it was a River who escaped from the Library, or Donna with her Time Lord DNA restored. For all we know, Missy made a collection of dead companions' souls, which would be both gruesome and in-character._

_It would have been so easy. If Moffat can bring Rory back to life over and over again, why not Danny? Either death is the end, or it isn't, but for goodness' sake, at least be consistent_


	2. Chapter 2

"Come closer," cooed the Mistress.

"Why?"

"I need to whisper."

Osgood hesitated.

"Oh, come on! Think how proud the Doctor will be if ye learn my secrets!" The woman's mocking Scottish accent grated on Osgood's nerves like fingernails on a blackboard.

"Keep back, ma'am," warned Mulligan, one of the two armed guards.

That decided her. She took a deep breath and met the eyes under the cherry-covered hat.

"Missy?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I've read your file. No, thanks."

Deliberately, she fished her earbuds out of her lab coat pocket and switched on her iPod before getting back to work.

She switched it off again at once when Missy's Cybermites ate through the handcuffs, but Mulligan and David made short work of her as they had been trained to do. Whatever plot the Doctor's enemy had in mind, regeneration sickness was going to make it a lot harder.

_Note: Osgood might still have died when the plane crashed, but at least that would be a less humiliating death than being tricked so easily. Or maybe the Cyber-Brigadier could have caught her out of the air as well as Kate. Anyway, if she's smart enough to recognize the Master as a woman, she must be smart enough to realize that he/she can't be trusted. UNIT soldiers wouldn't be so stupid either as not to move when the person they're guarding breaks out of her handcuffs._


	3. Chapter 3

"One thing I still don't understand," said Clara softly, stirring her latte and watching the Doctor with wide brown eyes. "The other Cybermen … "

"What aboot them?"

"They all obeyed."

"So?"

"Only Danny … didn't." She shivered at the memory of his ice-cold steel arm around her shoulders. "Even after we – after I fixed that inhibitor. Why? Because he loves me? But … he can't have been the only one in that graveyard who loved somebody."

The Doctor's weary face crinkled itself into a faint shadow of his old, smug smile.

"Clara, use yer head. What, besides yer species, do you, Danny and the Brigadier all have in common?"

"You?"

"Precisely." He snapped his fingers. "TARDIS energy. Cybermen don't like it. Gives them quite the virtual bellyache when they try to upgrade people who've come in contact with it. It's why they can't upgrade Time Lords."

"They upgraded _you _once."

"Halfway. Only because I was so shocked they'd even try. But really, those Cybermen were a much more advanced lot than Missy's, didn't you notice? Walking through electrified water, pretending to be puppets, playing chess … they had more initiative, that's for certain. I'm no' surprised. Couldn't have her boys getting too clever, now could she?"

Clara rolled her eyes. Trust the Doctor to have an answer for everything.

"So it was love _and _physics," she murmured to herself.

Not one, but two of the strongest forces in the universe aligned to save them. She swirled her latte, tracing constellations in the foam.


End file.
